Mark Bovens is a political scientist and lawyer by training. He is Professor of Public Administration at the Utrecht University School of Governance, which he co-founded in 2000. As of 2013, he is a member of the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) in The Hague, the strategic think tank of the Dutch cabinet. He has published 24 monographs and edited volumes and over a hundred articles and chapters in the areas of politics, government, and legal theory. He is an internationally well-known expert in the field of accountability studies and has published a number of seminal books and papers on the topic (eg: The Quest for Responsibility: Accountability and Citizenship in Complex Organizations, CUP 1998; The Real World of EU Accountability: What Deficit?, OUP 2010).

Robert E. Goodin is a philosopher and political scientist. He is a Distinguished Professor of Social & Political Theory and Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at Australian National University, as well as Professor of Government at the University of Essex. A Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, Goodin is founding editor of The Journal of Political Philosophy and of the Cambridge University Press series of books on 'Theories of Institutional Design'. He served as general editor of the eleven-volume series of Oxford Handbooks of Political Science. His own work straddles democratic theory (e.g. Reflective Democracy, OUP 2003), empirical welfare-state studies (e.g., The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, CUP 1999; Discretionary Time, CUP 2008) and theoretical reflections on public policy (e.g., Social Welfare as an Individual Responsibility, CUP 1998; What's Wrong with Terrorism? Polity 2006).

Thomas Schillemans is a public administration scholar. He received his PhD with honors in 2007 for his thesis on Horizontal Accountability in the Shadow of Hierarchy. His working experience includes seven years at the council for social development, an advisory body of the Dutch government. His research aims to make sense of dispersed practices of governance through empirical studies that examine the interactions of executive agencies, regulators and nonprofit organizations with relevant stakeholders: clients, professional peers and the newsmedia. Public accountability is a key concept in his work. He is assistant professor at the Utrecht University School of Governance.

• 1: Mark Bovens, Thomas Schillemans and Robert E. Goodin: Public Accountability


• A. Analytical Perspectives


• 2: Melvin J. Dubnick: Accountability as a Cultural Keyword


• 3: Mark E. Warren: Accountability and Democracy


• 4: Jane Mansbridge: A Contingency Theory of Accountability


• 5: Shefali V. Patil, Ferdinand Vieider and Philip E. Tetlock: Process versus Outcome Accountability


• 6: Sean Gailmard: Accountability and Principal-Agent Theory


• 7: Johan P. Olsen: Accountability and Ambiguity


• B. Studying Accountability


• 8: Christopher Koch and Jens Wüstemann: Experimental Analysis


• 9: Gijs Jan Brandsma: Quantitative Analysis


• 10: Kaifeng Yang: Qualitative Analysis


• 11: Jane Davison: Visual Accountability


• C. Accountable Governance


• 12: Carol Harlow: Accountability and Constitutional Law


• 13: B. Guy Peters: Accountability in Public Administration


• 14: John Uhr: Accountable Civil Servants


• 15: Erik Hans Klijn and Joop F.M. Koppenjan: Accountable Networks


• 16: Bodil Damgaard and Jenny M. Lewis: Accountability and Citizen Participation


• 17: Yannis Papadopoulos: Accountability and Multi-Level Governance


• 18: Michael Goodhart: Accountable International Relations


• D. Organizational Accountability


• 19: Barbara S. Romzek: Accountable Public Services


• 20: Per Lægreid: Accountability and New Public Management


• 21: Steven Rathgeb Smith: Accountability and the Non Profit Sector


• 22: Sheldon Leader: Accountable Corporate Governance


• 23: Jonathan Koppell: Accountable Global Governance Organizations


• E. Accountability mechanisms


• 24: Mark N. Franklin, Stuart Soroka and Christopher Wlezien: Elections


• 25: Mark D. Jarvis: Hierarchy


• 26: Christie Hayne and Steven E. Salterio: Accounting and Auditing


• 27: Steven Van de Walle and Floor Cornelissen: Performance Reporting


• 28: Robert D. Behn: PerformanceStat


• 29: Colin Scott: Independent Regulators


• 30: Paul L. Posner and Asif Shahan: Audit Institutions


• 31: Albert Meijer: Transparency


• 32: Pippa Norris: Watchdog Journalism


• F. Debating Accountability


• 33: Richard Mulgan: Accountability Deficits


• 34: Arie Halachmi: Accountability Overloads


• 35: Jerry L. Mashaw: Accountability and Time


• 36: Sanneke Kuipers and Paul 't Hart: Accountability and Crises


• 37: Christopher Hood: Accountability and Blame Avoidance


• 38: Dorothea Greiling: Accountability and Trust


• 39: Mark H. Moore: Accountability, Legitimacy, and the Court of Public Opinion


• G. Reflections on the future of Accountability Studies


• 40: Melvin J. Dubnick: The Ontological Challenge


• 41: Frank Vibert: The Need for a Systemic Approach


• 42: Matthew Flinders: The Future and Relevance of Accountability Studies


• 43: Mark Bovens and Thomas Schillemans: Meaningful Accountability